Mats Utas on the Ebola epidemic and the role of the anthropologist in global health crises

Mats Utas. Photo: Ola Lundström.

In this episode AnthroTalking interviews Mats Utas. Mats has had a lot of public exposure lately in Sweden as part of the Swedish response team for the West African Ebola epidemic and we talk to him about issues of public perception and institutional mobilisation in tackling a public health crisis that has achieved surprising notoriety.

Mats Utas is an Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at Uppsala University and a long-time researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute. He is best known for his acclaimed anthropological studies of conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Somalia. He blogs at https://matsutas.wordpress.com/.

Mats talks about the role of the anthropologist in the middle of a public health crisis and the cultural impact of a globally mediated epidemic. He brings his expertise and situated knowledge of the area into interpreting an outbreak that has been generalised and misrepresented by news sources and casting new light on one of the most mediated chapters, the so-called West Point crisis.

Ferguson, James 1990, The anti-politics machine: “development,” depoliticization, and bureaucratic power in Lesotho, CUP Archive.

Cite as:

Dragoș C. Costache ”Mats Utas on the Ebola epidemic and the role of the anthropologist in global health crises” AnthroTalking: Podcasts at Stockholm University's Department of Social Anthropology, online March 10, 2015, http://www.socant.su.se/english/about-us/anthrotalking/mats-utas-on-the-ebola-epidemic-and-the-role-of-the-anthropologist-in-global-health-crises-1.227634

AnthroTalking

AnthroTalking is a podcast produced by a group of students currently enrolled in the department’s master’s programme. The podcasts feature interviews with anthropologists from Sweden and abroad. You will hear them reflect upon their work and their experiences in the field, and comment on a wide array of issues and debates. If you have suggestions for future episodes or feedback on any of the episodes, please email anthrotalking@gmail.com.